Outstanding author Neil Gaiman suggests a wordy twist to an already outstanding holiday. He proposes “All Hallow’s Read” as an opportunity to give someone else (or many someone elses!) a suitably scary book. Now, I’m obviously not going to be sending your six-year-old a copy of Christine (though I haven’t ruled out Carrie…), but there are heaps of age-appropriate scary books for all sorts of folks. The brains behind the site have compiled suggestions here. Don’t see your favorite? Give it to someone! Spread the word.

Although I’m not affiliated in anyway with this site – seriously, I wish I was! – I can tell you my new favorite and it happens to be a book from Neil himself: The Wolves in the Walls. It’s geared to the younger set and is beautifully illustrated and cleverly thought out. We’ve been holding on to our library copy (for shame! and from a librarian!) for a full month (or, uh, longer) and RR loves to page through it even though she can’t sit through the words yet.

I have The Wolves in the Walls (I’ve had a copy since it came out, actually), but haven’t tried reading it to Critter yet. Mostly I’m just concerned that he’ll try to grab the pages and tear them, and that’s one of the books that’s firmly on the “Mommy’s books that she’ll read to you if you’re good but are in no way to be considered your books”. Possibly that makes me a terrible parent. (But a dedicated bibliophile, and I’ve been one of those longer, so…) But maybe we’ll give The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree another go sometime soon.